Monday, January 8, 2018

Undercover Cubs - 2017 Dexter Fowler

I've talked about a few cards in the past that had infiltrated my collection as "Cubs" cards, but in reality they weren't.

Most of them were like these:

 

Former Cubs players, wearing their Cubs uniforms, but clearly marked as having moved on to other teams.
I even have one of the more notorious error cards in Cubs circles of Keith Comstock in Mariners gear but representing the Cubs. The error? Comstock never played for the Cubs and a corrected version was eventually issued.

These cards were included in posts titled How'd That Get There? because at a quick glance you might question why they would be in a Cubs collection. But they count as Cubs to me.

In a case of "same, but different" I've added a couple of 2017 cards of Dexter Fowler, 2016 All-Star and World Champion.



Why? These are very clearly Cardinals cards, no?

Well....technically. Cardinals uniforms, Cardinals logos, Cardinals text.

But let's take a look at these cards through our X-Ray glasses.



While I could have easily speculated that any cards issued early in 2017 would be photoshopped editions, seeing this autographed version of the Fowler Gypsy Queen card sealed the deal.

Same, but different
The same source photo was used, one as a Cub, one a Cardinal.

I don't know the lead time on printing cards but I do know that 2017 Gypsy Queen was officially released on March 29, 2017. And Dexter Fowler signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as a free agent on December 9, 2016. Since Gypsy Queen does on-card autographs, these would have needed to be printed way in advance to be given to Fowler to sign and return. So three months is enough time to do a little photoshopping for base cards but not enough for the autographed edition.

It makes me wonder if the Cubs base versions were printed and destroyed or never even made it to print.

These four cards will join this Scott Hairston card out of 2013 Topps Update in a new "Undercover Cubs" niche collection. I blogged about that one here.


I doubt this collection will grow very much and that's fine with me, though I do have one more to share.

I also have one more interestingly photoshopped Dexter Fowler card from 2017 but it doesn't involve the Cubs at all. Look for that one tomorrow!

4 comments:

  1. On Hairston, in your original post, you lament the fact that Hairston did not have a Cubs card. Well, he actually did!

    Like how the on-card autos have to be printed earlier, so too did the silk parallels from 2013 Update. Scott made that checklist and was thus printed as a Cub; I have one of these in my collection. It makes for a fun little oddity!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I found that out later but never got around to picking it up. Thanks for the reminder so I can keep an eye out!

      Delete
  2. I was going to comment on the 2017 Heritage Aroldis Chapman parallels which show him as a Cub while the base cards show him as a Yankee... but Tony Burbs pointed out a similar situation and beat me to it by a little under a month. Oh, well. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, definitely thanks for the heads up. I hadn't seen the Chapmans.

      Delete